


Time is on my side (unless you're Neal)

by Stahlop



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Neverland (Once Upon a Time), Time works differently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stahlop/pseuds/Stahlop
Summary: He hadn’t planned on getting captured by Felix and Pan the moment he landed back in Neverland.He hadn’t planned to be locked in a cage for Emma to hopefully come and find.And he certainly hadn’t planned on Emma and Hook having started a relationship while saving Henry.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 11
Kudos: 91





	Time is on my side (unless you're Neal)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [profdanglais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/profdanglais/gifts).



> Happy Birthday profdanglais!
> 
> Look at me actually getting a birthday fic out on time! I hope you enjoy this Neverland fic that I wrote. And it's another one where Neal gets called out (I know, we're so sick of those aren't we).
> 
> And thank you to recoveringthesatellites for being my beta.
> 
> Enjoy!

It has been four days by his calculations. Four days since he’s been shot and thrown into the portal by the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. And four days since Emma Swan has told him she loved him before falling through said portal. And even though Mulan has done her best, he still has the bullet in his chest, something he has to get taken care of one he gets back to Storybrooke (whether magically by his father or by Dr. Whale, he didn’t really care). He was so relieved to meet Robin Hood’s son, Roland. He was the way back to Neverland. Of course, Robin wasn’t too thrilled about it, but Neal knew it was the only way he could save Emma and Henry. And now he is off, hitching a ride with the Shadow once more, to save his family once again.

He hadn’t planned on getting captured by Felix and Pan the moment he landed back in Neverland. 

He hadn’t planned to be locked in a cage for Emma to hopefully come and find. 

And he certainly hadn’t planned on Emma and Hook having started a relationship while saving Henry.

________________________________________

Emma hasn’t meant to fall for him. She’d been telling Mary Margaret the truth when she said she’d kissed him because she was feeling good. But she couldn’t get the kiss out of her head. She’d started craving his lips, his scruff, his fingers in her hair. The wrecked look on Hook’s face when she’d pulled away and told him it was a one time thing. She thought he’d wanted to hear that. She thought she wanted that. But after constant sex dreams featuring the damn pirate, she tried to take matters into her own hands, literally. And Hook had gotten worried when he came back from patrolling and went to look for her and had found her with one hand down her pants and the other fondling her breast. She didn’t even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed, just grabbed his arm when he decided to be a gentleman and turned around, and spun him right to her lips. 

His lips seemed hotter, his scruff scratchier, his hair thicker, all things that were making her body tingle and tremble like it hadn’t in years. And she let him finish her up right there, not even 15 feet away from her parents, Regina, and Tinker Bell. It was probably the best orgasm she’d had in her life and they hadn’t even had sex!

And so it became a nightly ritual. They’d camp down for the night after their search for Henry was unsuccessful, and after everyone had drifted off they’d sneak out to ‘release some tension’.

And that was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

Emma wasn’t sure how long they’d been on the island or how it related to real time, but she knew it had been awhile. Mary Margaret had been marking the days on a rock she was carrying with her. There were 30 marks on it. They’d been there a month. And that’s when Emma lost it. Because it had been a month since Pan kidnapped Henry and they were no closer to finding him than when they’d landed on the damn island. Would he have forgotten them by now? Thought they wouldn’t come for him? That they’d forgotten about him?

Hook finds her sobbing by a tree far from camp. Emma hadn’t wanted anyone to see or hear her, but of course Hook was right there, comforting her and whispering into her ear how amazing a mother she was and what a monster Pan was. It is the first night since they’d started sleeping with each other that they actually just slept together.

It’s also the first time they’re caught by everyone.

Emma could make excuses, make up lies, anything but the truth. But instead, she realizes that she doesn’t want to lie. 

“Hook….Killian,” she catches herself, “and I are together.” She looks directly in both her parents eyes when she says it, daring them to defy her. Mary Margaret almost looks crestfallen, like she believes Emma has moved on from Neal much too fast for her liking. David looks like he wants to punch Killian’s lights out for daring to so much as look at her. Regina rolls her eyes and mutters something that sounds like  _ finally _ , and Tink just beams at Killian.

“It’s a relief.” Emma says to Killian once they’ve been left alone. She’s already worn out and the day has barely started. He just nods and steals a kiss. 

In the daylight.

With her parents in plan view.

She feels happier than she’s ever felt before. Now they just need to find Henry and she’ll be fucking ecstatic.

_______________________________________

Neal’s watch doesn’t work. He really shouldn’t have expected it to, being in Neverland and all, but he’d hoped he’d be able to figure out how long he’d been in this damn cage. But it’s been stuck at 8:15 since he landed here. 

He knows he can’t have been here long. Even with the wonky passage of time, he hasn’t been hungry since Felix originally fed him, and he hasn’t needed to go to the bathroom (in the wonderful tiny chamberpot that Pan graciously left him in the tiny cramped cage). He knows it has been four days since he landed here, so at the most he thinks it can only have been five to six days since he fell through that portal.

Which is why he’s surprised when he sees everyone enter the Echo Caves, where Pan has been holding him, and even though they’re far away, he’s pretty god damn sure Emma and the filthy pirate are holding hands.

He can’t hear what they’re saying, even though he’s straining as much as he can. But he can plainly see Emma and Hook very close to one another, his hand stroking a piece of her hair, and no one seems surprised by this. He knows they are revealing secrets, even if he can’t hear what they are. He has no idea what they’re confessing, only that with each secret that is brought to light the pathway to his freedom becomes more tangible. It started with Hook’s confession, and whatever it was, Emma definitely kissed him afterward. He may be far away and he may not be able to hear them, but he’s definitely not blind. Whatever Emma’s parents reveal seems to make Emma step away from them for a moment. He can’t even imagine what Snow White and Prince Charming had to have done to make Emma need a moment. 

The stone bridge that extends after each confession is almost complete. Neal wonders if Emma can just jump the last part and get to him. But he knows that’s not how the Echo Caves works. This may be the first time he’s actually been in them, but he lived in Neverland long enough to know what they were and how they worked. Just another one of Pan’s sick games to sow discord throughout his Lost Boys.

He peers again through the bamboo bars of his cage (magically fortified, obviously), to see that Emma has given her confession and it looks as though everyone is looking at the final piece of the bridge that has filled the gap. No one moves to come rescue him though. Neal was relieved to see them all before, knowing that Emma’s family never leave their loved ones behind. There seems to be rage and confusion on his would-be rescuers faces, and he’s wondering what exactly Emma confessed. 

It may take him a few seconds to realize that they are looking directly at him and not the pathway.

__________________________________

“So what, we’re just supposed to sprout wings and fly?” Emma asks incredulously, when Killian tells them they have to reveal their deepest secrets to get to the cage that sits in the center of the cave with no possible means to get to it. 

‘I don’t know, love.” Killian says, his fingers twisting in her hair the way she likes, the way he likes. Her parents don’t even seem to notice their public displays of affection anymore. Having been on this island for almost four months now (according to Snow’s rocks), Emma realizes that they’ve come to care for Killian as well. The fact that they started to call him Killian was a big step, considering David had threatened him bodily harm for much of their...well, Emma supposes it is a relationship. She’s not sure what will happen once Henry is found and they can get off of Neverland. She’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. Right now, they apparently have to figure out how to cross a non-existent bridge to rescue Neal, who is supposedly in the cage in the center of the Echo Caves.

Everyone looks reluctant to tell their secrets. Killian eventually huffs a long sigh and volunteers to go first. “My secret is, I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of my first love, of my Milah... to believe that I could find someone else... that is, until I met you.” He looks directly at her when he says it, deep blue eyes never wavering from hers. “And now, Emma Swan, I am irrevocably and passionately in love with you.” He gives a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. She can tell he didn’t want to reveal this yet, knew they were still on tentative ground. He probably would’ve preferred to wait until Henry was safe as to not scare her off. But it doesn’t scare her, and that probably scares her more. That feeling of wanting to run never comes, so she doesn’t the only thing she can think of, and that’s kiss him.

The ground shakes beneath them and they all turn toward the chasm and see the beginning of a stone bridge forming, heading straight for the center.

“Well, I guess we know what we have to do then.” Mary Margaret says with a bit of worry in her voice. She looks over at David with slight fear in her eyes and Emma can’t possibly imagine how bad a secret between Snow White and Prince Charming could be. They explain how they threw Maleficent’s egg, her child, into a portal because they were afraid Emma would end up with darkness instead of light. The whole thing is bizarre and Emma can barely understand the words coming out of her parents mouths because this doesn’t sound like something they’d do (and apparently Maleficent laid her baby in an egg, which is also bizarre despite the fact Emma has only seen her as a dragon). The ground shakes again, the bridge almost reaching the center of the cave. The gap is not quite small enough for Emma to jump it to reach Neal. And oh, crap, she’s going to have to tell them the one thing she really didn’t want to tell them.

“You all know I was in jail.” Emma says nervously, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “You know Henry was born there, but you don’t know why I was there.” She pauses to take a deep breath. This is already harder than she thought it would be. “Neal and I were thieves together. Mainly to survive. I was almost 17, he was 22, or at least that’s the age he gave me. Obviously he was more like 200 or something.” She tries to stay strong through this. Emma knows Mary Margaret won’t care about the thievery, she was a thief herself, but she doesn’t want her parents to think any less of her when she reveals the next part.

“We were together for a few months and I thought I loved him. I thought I knew everything. And I knew I loved Neal and he claimed to love me. Neal had stolen some watches and stashed them in a train locker. But there was a wanted poster out for him. I offered to get the watches. We were going to go to Tallahassee with the money he’d get for fencing them. He gave me one to show how serious he was about our future. But apparently, August, Pinocchio, found him and told him I was from the Enchanted Forest, that I was needed to break the curse. And then he found out his father was part of the curse, and, coward that he was, he ran.” There are tears starting to form in her eyes and she can see that Mary Margaret and David are just slightly ahead of her. 

“When I went to the meet up I only found cops. And the watch on my wrist was enough to convict me. It wasn’t until a month later I found out I was pregnant with Henry. And, well, you know the rest.” The tears are falling freely now, even though she is looking up to try and stop them. Killian has taken her hand at some point to show his support. She’d told him this already. One night after making love (she can admit that’s what it was now) he’d traced the faint stretch marks on her belly and kissed them, making her feel beautiful instead of ugly, and it had somehow prompted her to tell him the whole ugly truth. 

The ground shakes one last time and everyone looks over at the cage, but no one moves.

____________________

Once the final piece of the bridge forms, Neal watches the small group stand there, just staring at him, but no one makes the move to come get him. He wishes he knew why. He assumes that Emma will come to get him, she had, after all, told him that she loved him before falling down that portal. It’s what has kept him moving. Her love and Henry are his motivation for starting fresh in Storybrooke, despite his father and Hook being there. But it’s not Emma who comes to rescue him from the cage, but Hook!

“Bae.” He stops just short of the cage, his black leather pants and boots the only thing in Neal’s vision. He feels like a little boy again with Hook towering over him like this. It’s unnerving.

“I go by Neal now.” Neal retorts, immediately biting his tongue. He really shouldn’t piss off the person who can save him. If he will save him this time.

“Yes.” Hook says. He sighs and kneels down to Neal’s level. He attempts to open the cage, but, just as Neal had suspected, it works on the same magic as the bridge. Neal sighs.

‘You know what you have to do to open it, Hook.” Hook swallows and nods at him.

“I regret leaving you, Bae...Neal. I was angry that you had rejected me. I was angry that you were the key to killing your father, but also that you were your mother’s son. I would have loved nothing more if you had stayed on my ship and we’d travelled the realms together like your mother had hoped we would some day. Instead, I was selfish and left you to the mercy of Pan. I’m truly sorry for that.” The cage shimmers away during Hook’s confession until it leaves just two men kneeling down near each other. Neal isn’t sure what to do at this moment. Can he forgive Hook? He spent so much of his life blaming him for not only the destruction of his family, but the destruction of his youth.

“Thank...thank you.” Neal stands up and pulls Hook up with him before he adds. “Look man, I can forgive you, but that doesn’t mean I like you. Just, stay away from me and my family once we get back to Storybrooke.” He turns angrily and walks quickly across the bridge, knowing the magic of the cave will eventually make it disappear. He can hear Hook sighing behind him, but he doesn’t know why. He couldn’t have actually expected his confession, made under duress, to evoke real forgiveness from him, could he. There is still too much hurt there. He just needs to get to Emma, they need to save Henry, and then get off this god forsaken island and then everything will be fine.

It’s not fine. 

Not at all.

The second they’re out of the Echo Caves and Neal goes to talk to Emma she shoots him down and informs him that she and Hook are now in love.

“How the hell did you fall in love in a week?” Neal asks incredulously. Emma looks completely dumbfounded.

“Neal, it’s been almost four months!” Emma shoots back, and now it’s Neal’s turn to be completely dumbfounded. 

“No! That can’t be right.” Neal says frantically, running his fingers through his hair. “I was only in the Enchanted Forest for four days before getting The Shadow to take me here. And I know I haven’t been sitting in that cage for three months.

Emma is still looking at him like he’s nuts. “Neal, you lived here for hundreds of years, you know time works differently here.” She’s getting angry at him. How the hell did he fuck this up already? And he did know that you never age in Neverland, but he never really thought about the passage of time and what that meant to the outside world.

“Emma, please.” He’s begging now. “All I’ve thought about this past week was you telling me you loved me. Did that mean nothing when you told me that?”

Her face softens slightly. “Neal.” She lets out a huge breath. “I did love you. A long time ago. But I don’t love you anymore. I  _ can’t _ love you anymore. Not after everything. You were….dying. I just wanted you to have something happy to think about before you passed.” And then the softness in her features changes to something more harsh. “And besides, you were engaged to Tamara just seconds before she shot you. You can’t claim to have loved me for all those years when you’d moved on. And it’s not fair for you to pin all your happiness on me and Henry.” She turns to head back toward the others, but Neal just can’t help the words that come out of his mouth.

“Is it because of Hook?” Neal spits out. Emma stops, her back going rigid, her hackles up. “Would you be saying this if Hook wasn’t in the picture?” Emma turns to him but doesn’t move from where she’d stopped. Her eyes are slits and she looks pissed.

“No Neal.” Emma says with all the energy of someone who has argued a point to death. “This has nothing to do with Killian.” Neal really hates that she calls him by his real name. “You put me in jail, you let me have a baby in jail, you made it so I had to give Henry up because I was in jail. These are not things that can be forgiven so easily. So, no. This has nothing to do with Killian.” Emma turns back around and walks away, and Neal is left alone at the entrance of the Echo Caves wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do now.

______________________________

It takes another month before they finally rescue Henry. Despite all of Pan’s taunts about Henry losing faith and becoming a Lost Boy, Henry has not given up hope, and he certainly hasn’t believed any of Pan’s lies about needing his heart to save magic. Emma can’t believe that Pan would think the Heart of the Truest Believer would believe his lies. She couldn’t be prouder.

Once Pan is taken care of (in Pandora’s Box never to trouble them again) and they are safely on the Jolly Roger, Emma tells Henry about everything about what it took to find him. She apologizes profusely that it took them so long, but Henry, being the great kid that he is, completely understands and doesn’t begrudge them for taking so long. He knows these things can take time, especially when magic is involved.

“I’m just happy dad is alive and you two can be together again.” Henry says happily looking between the two of them. And Emma could lie, or prolong the inevitable, Henry has been through enough. But she promised him she wouldn’t lie to him anymore, and she’s happy, and she wants Henry to share in that happiness.

“Your father and I aren’t together, kid.” She says taking his hands in hers. “There are too many past mistakes that I just can’t forgive him for. And I tried to protect you from that, because I wanted you to make up your own mind about him. And I think Neal should tell you about them. But I am happy right now, and it’s because of Killian.” Henry gives a confused look when she mentions Killian’s name. Right. He only knows him as “Hook.” Emma clarifies. 

Emma watches Henry’s face closely. She’s not sure what his reaction to that revelation will be, considering he’s only known him as a villain. A villain who just helped rescue him, but a villain who tried to kill Belle to exact revenge against his grandfather nonetheless. Henry gives her a serious look, as if he’s searching her face for how he should react to this news. 

“Does he make you happy?” He asks her. 

Emma nods. “Yes, he really does.” She smiles.

“Good.” Henry smiles back at her. “Because if he hurts you, I’ll run him through with a sword.” Emma laughs. It feels so good to laugh without feeling guilty about it.

And when they get back to Storybrooke, it has indeed barely been a little over a week since they left (10 days to be exact). And yeah, she and Killian get some weird looks when they emerge from the ship holding hands and she gives him a peck on the cheek before heading down the gangplank together, but the town is just going to have to get used to it.

They do.

And Neal eventually gets over himself too.

He even finds love again with Tinker Bell of all people (are fairies considered people?).

And Neal even buries the hatchet with Killian, figuratively, not literally.

And while Emma would have rather not had to travel to Neverland to rescue her kidnapped son, she is thankful that it gave her the time she needed to let her walls down and Killian in. And she tells Killian that in their wedding vows when they get married a year later.


End file.
